Future Present
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: Caught in the past, trapped in the present, Kitty awaits the future only one woman can give her. Femme slash and het. Slight AU.


Title: "Future Present"  
Author: Pirate Turner  
Rating: R  
Summary: Caught in the past, trapped in the present, Kitty awaits the future only one woman can give her.  
Warnings: Het, Femme Slash, Slight Alternate Universe  
Challenge: Peja's 2-3-09 challenge to the XMenFantasies list to have an X-Man attacked in their sleep  
Disclaimer: Katheryne "Kitty" "Shadowcat" Pryde, Lockheed, Piotr "Colossus" Rasputian, Pete Wisdom, Illyana "Magik" Rasputian, Scott "Cyclops" and Jean "Phoenix" Grey-Summers, Rachel "Phoenix" Summers, Meggan, Excalibur, and the X-Men are © & TM Marvel comics, not the author. Everything else is © & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

She was slipping, sliding, falling through a kaleidoscope of colors so bright and vivid that they shut out everything else around her, barring her from being able to spot anything she might could grasp hold to and jarring her thoughts so that she could not think pass the fear that clogged her throat and mind. Something was coming, she knew, or perhaps, rather, she was being taken to it, she thought as a great roaring sound surrounded her and the colors continued to flash furiously.

Her hands and feet shot out, but though she fought to gain hold of something, anything to stop her fall, she could find nothing. The colors wrapped around her, but she felt nothing solid in them. It was as though they were made of the very air itself, and the great roaring sound was the suction that was pulling her ever closer to her doom. She tried to phase, but her body remained stubbornly solid.

She fell forever until at last something hard broke her fall. As she fought to get her bearings, Shadowcat realized first that she was laying against metal and then that it was not just any metal but the very particular metal that possessed an inner core that was the sweetest and kindest soul she had ever known, the soul of one of the two men she had ever truly loved. Relief began to replace her fear as she exclaimed, "Oh, Piotr -- "

But then her words died in her throat as she caught sight of his face and his eyes, which glowed with fury, filled her instead with dread. His arms were not wrapping around her. His hands did not even touch her, and his arms felt stiff beneath her body. "Peter?" she questioned, her voice barely a whisper.

"Falling into my life again, Katya?" His voice was the coldest she had ever heard it, and icy fear wrapped around her rapidly beating heart. "Nyet, I think. Not again, not ever again. I have learned my lesson. You come to me only when you need me, then cast me away for the next dark and handsome stranger you meet."

"Pete was hardly -- "

"Nyet, Katya," Piotr stopped her with a firm shake of his head. "I am done with your excuses, with your pitiful 'woe is me's. No more, I say. No more shall you sneak into my life, into my head, my bed, and especially not my heart when you do not love me and all you ever do is hurt me. But then, that is what you do best, is it not? You come into our lives for a time, when you need us and we do not need you; use us for your own selfish needs; hurt us; and finally fail us when we need you the most."

"No . . . No, Piotr! I love you!"

"You say that now, Katya," he demanded, looking down into her eyes with eyes as cold and hard as the metal that his flesh and blood body was currently encased in, "but where were you when I needed you? Where were you when I died?"

Fear had made her brown eyes grow bigger with each word he had spoken until tears filled them and streaked down her face. "I wanted to be there, but you wouldn't . . . "

"I wouldn't what?" he countered. "I wouldn't let you help me? That was the same pitiful excuse you used when I returned to you to find you wrapped with Wisdom. But then, perhaps, it is he you want. I only know that it was not me."

Tears streaked down his face, glistening along his silver metal, and she reached a trembling hand up to try to wipe them away. He pulled back, and though she was still in his arms, no matter how hard she tried, she could not reach his face to ease his sadness or his pain. She tried to talk, but no words would form to defend herself.

"See? You can not even defend yourself for you know what I speak are words of truth."

"Piotr -- " His name left her throat in a harsh wail.

"Nyet, Katya, it is far too late for that." Where his tears had streaked now appeared rivulets of blood, and then his face split. Blood poured from the split that separated his face, and then more holes appeared in his metal, each shaking him and blowing through him as though he was being shot though there was no gunfire and no normal bullet could have ever penetrated his armor. Kitty's gasps, cries, and whimpers had grown into full blown screams, but though she tried to reach him and his arms remained underneath her body, she could not. Blood flowed from him, at first spattering onto her and then gushing. It forced her from his arms, and she fell through darkness, her body twisting and turning in the sticky, crimson ocean of blood.

For a second time, she fell for what seemed like forever, but this time, she was able to scream. She screamed for Piotr, screamed to be allowed to help him, but the entire time, she kept falling, being carried by his blood ever further away from him until at long last she hit her knees. At first, there was darkness everywhere. Her heart hammered in her throat as she cried out for Piotr again and again.

At long last, an answer came to her, but it was not her beloved Russian's voice. It was a child's, a child's voice that brought memories sweeping back to Kitty both of the good and of the bad, of the times she wanted to hold on to and those she had begged to be able to forget. "He's gone, Kitty. You failed him. You failed us all!"

"I-Illyana?" Her name came out like a squeak of a terrified mouse, rather than the brave Shadowcat the child had once held to and looked up to as though she was one of the greatest heroes in the whole world, seconded only to her big brother.

Kitty heard a light switch on, but before she could think about who or what could have turned it on or look around her to try to catch some glimpse of the entity, her gaze fell about the little girl who trembled and shook, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Illyana's face had been hiding against her knees, but now she rose her head and looked directly into Kitty's frightened, tear-filled eyes. "You failed us all," she repeated.

"No! No, that's not true! I -- " But it was. She had loved them both, and both had been taken from her by death. She had failed to find a cure in time to save Illyana, and Piotr had sacrificed his life to find that cure long after it was impossible to save the golden-haired girl who they both held so dear. "I . . . "

What could she say? There was no excuse for her actions, no way possible to make what had happened ever be okay. She had ruined Illyana while she had been transformed into an adult and failed to keep the most important promises she had made to her. She had loved her as a best friend, a soul sister, and a lover, and she had let her down time and again. She had not only failed to save her, but she had also failed to save the one who she loved the most, the one she had begged and pleaded with her to protect, the one who had just died again through a means Kitty could not possibly hope to understand at this time.

Kitty hung her head, her flowing tears unstopping. "I'm sorry, Illyana! I'm so sorry!" She did not try to reach out to her. She did not dare to ever hope to touch her again, let alone hold her. She had no right to do any of that for she was the unworthiest person who Illyana had ever shone her golden light of rapturous love upon. "I'm so sorry . . . "

"You say that so well," another voice spoke through the darkness. She looked up at the masculine voice and blinked rapidly, trying to clear enough of her tears out of her gaze so that she might see who spoke. Surely it was not him? First Piotr and then Illyana. Must she also again suffer through the loss of the only other man who'd ever won her heart?

A lighter flared to life, illuminating his long, skinny body as he lit his cigarette. His footsteps echoed through the place that held her captive as he crossed to stand before her. He scooped slightly so that his face peered into hers. "You always were pretty, Pryde. Pretty good at lying, at being deceitful, at failing those who love you, and then saying you're sorry, thinking that's all it takes to make it all go away."

"No, no! I know saying I'm sorry isn't enough, Pete! It's never going to be enough!"

"You're right," he snapped, his eyes flashing. "It'll never be enough." He waved his cigarette through the air, and smoke surrounded her. "No matter what you say, no matter what you do, Pryde, it'll never be enough. You failed us all; you let us die!"

He threw his cigarette at her with a disgusted glower. It fell to the floor immediately before her as he walked away, ignoring her cries. Fire sparked from the cigarette, and a circle lit up all around her. The flames licked at her flesh, and though she tried, she could not phase. She could not even move except to shake uncontrollably as she cried. Her blue tears fell into the scarlet flames, and they sizzled but neither stopped nor even slowed. They shot up at her, crowding in on her until she could feel the fire scorching every inch of her body.

She wailed as the flames ate at her flesh, but then, as suddenly as she had first began to fall, they stopped and changed tactics. Where they had nipped at her, they now licked. Where they had burned her, they now caressed. At first, she didn't understand, and then, as her tears slowly subsided, clarity dawned in the form of a beautiful angel.

"Phoenix," she breathed, tilting her head up so that she could more directly gaze into her beloved's lovely face. Rachel's flaming wings wrapped tenderly around Kitty, and she smiled lovingly upon her. Warmth washed over Kitty as she reached for the one woman who she would choose beyond all others, the woman who she had long ago decided was the only one she truly wanted to spend eternity with, the woman she had always loved and would never stop loving beyond all others.

Rachel grasped Kitty's arms and squeezed her lightly before releasing her and beginning to pull away. "R-Rachel, don'-don't leave me."

"I have to, Kitty, but I will return. You'll see." She blew her a kiss, and then she was gone, leaving Kitty to stir slowly to gentle licks upon her face and concerned coos filling her ears.

Her eyes opened slowly, and she moaned. Lockheed's coos greeted her ears, and she reached up, lovingly stroking his leathery skin as he licked her reassuringly. His coos grew into the soft sound that was so like a purr that it always helped to calm her down and to be reassured that everything would turn out all right. Her fingers curled around the edge of one of his purple wings. "I saw them again, 'Heed, all blaming me, all but Ray . . . my sweet, beautiful Ray . . . "

Lifting Lockheed into her arms, Kitty left her room, walking straight through the wall. She passed through several rooms before leaving the mansion and then crossed over the green grass that was wet with drops of morning dew. There was a chill in the air, but it felt good to them, reminding them of mornings on Muir Isle, mornings where Meggan had tried so hard to make them breakfast before they all fell into their beds, exhausted from the mission the night before, and Lockheed curled into his mistress' arms while she curled into Rachel's.

They walked across the grass, memories floating through both their minds and eventually being replaced by thoughts of what was yet to come. They entered the house that Scott and Jean had made their home and moved silently to the nursery. There, they peered down together at the baby who slept so innocently. Kitty reached down and tenderly stroked the infant's first red curl.

Lockheed cooed quietly as he joined his best friend in thoughts of the woman they hoped this child would grow up to become. "Hurry up and grow up, Rachel," Kitty whispered in the still of the early morning. "I need you." A tear splashed down onto the sleeping babe's face as her mother stirred in the next room.

Jean woke to the knowledge that Rachel was not alone, but a quick mindscan of the house relaxed her instanteously. She welcomed Kitty and her relationship with Rachel whole-heartedly and, like her young friend, only hoped that her baby would grow to be the beautiful, strong, and intelligent woman that they all already loved. Even if she did not, Jean's love for her daughter would never diminish, but she knew and accepted that Kitty desperately needed her life partner, just as she herself needed her beloved husband. She rolled over onto her side, wrapped an arm around Scott who slept in peaceful unawareness of the turmoil of emotions around them, and snuggled back into the warm confines of their bed, content with the knowledge that her baby could not have been in better hands.

**The End**


End file.
